Steam Sale Review: Torchlight

Remember when I had a blog? Me neither.
Also I think I've made that joke before.
What is our feature presentation tonight? Why it's the third last game on the the list,


As I said way back in that fantasy time known as 2009, Torchlight was made by some of the people who worked on Diablo 2 and has more than a passing resemblance to it. It would not be unfair to say that Torchlight is really just Diablo 2.5.
Actually that is a little unfair to Diablo 2.

The gameplay is basically the same as it's spiritual predecessor, but with improvements to the formula: spells are hotkeyed in a better fashion, you don't have to manually pick up gold, dropped items can display their names constantly.
Visually Torchlight is for the lack of a better word, cartoony, in a style similar to Warcraft 3 or WoW. Effects are bright and colourful, and spells hit with a level of 'oomph' scientists have determined as satisfying.
So if you like D2's gameplay but want to play something more modern Torchlight is a decent choice, at least until D3 comes out sometime near/distant/apocalyptic future.

But if you want something more than repetitive combat and gear collection, then Torchlight ain't so great.
The story and general setting leave much to be desired. Evil monsters in near endless labyrinth beneath town, murderise them, profit. It's basically D1 but without the morbid atmosphere and sidequests.
A minor but frequent annoyance is the physics involving stairs and projectiles. Torchlight has 3d environments that for the most part function fine until you have to interact with a non-level plane. Once that happens your character will shoot at the stairs in front of him rather than the monster upon them. As I said this is minor, but it is frustrating when you realise that D2 (a 2d game faking 3d) handled this better.

It's been a while since I finished Torchlight so there's probably something I've left out but it really doesn't matter. The game is very mediocre. There's nothing gamebreakingly wrong with it, but there's nothing that makes it jump out and say 'play me'. The most enjoyment gleamed I out of it was the initial nostalgia for D 1 and 2.